


covered in gold inside my head

by ohmygodwhy



Category: Percy Jackson and the Olympians & Related Fandoms - All Media Types
Genre: Fluff without Plot, Gen, Introspection, Lazy Mornings, M/M, Pre-Relationship, Soft Pining, kinda like they're lowkey already there but not quite, rlly just jason being gay
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-09
Updated: 2017-01-09
Packaged: 2018-09-15 17:30:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,815
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9248201
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ohmygodwhy/pseuds/ohmygodwhy
Summary: He decides to concede just because of that, damn him, rolls his eyes and says “Whatever you say,” just to see the way Nico smiles at him, the very first glints of sunlight pouring in through the window and dotting the bed.





	

**Author's Note:**

> alternate titles include: 'jason is tired and might be a little in love but that's okay', or 'jason's inner monologue is rlly gay' 
> 
> other alternate title: i should be working on truce but i'm tired and sick and gay and needed some soft jasico for the soul
> 
> pls enjoy 1000+ words of jason rambling

 

 

He swears to the gods he’s usually more composed than this, he really is—he’s had years of Roman praetor training and stuff so he’s usually more in check than this, really, ask anyone, but. See, it’s. Difficult for him to keep all composed right now because Nico had stayed late in his cabin last night, watching shitty old horror movies on Leo’s illegal laptop, Nico slumped forwards on a pillow with an elbow draped over Jason’s folded legs and while that was great, fantastic even, it wasn’t really a rare occurrence nowadays. 

They’re a lot better friends now than they were at the end of the war and the beginning of the era Jason likes to think of as Adjusting To Whatever Semblance Of Normal Camp Life Brings, or Learning How To Live Life Without A War Going On, which hadn’t exactly been a very fun era to get through, all awkward and stilted and nightmarey, and the two of them (and probably the rest of the seven and maybe the majority of camp) were not very good at the whole living without a war thing. 

Jason, for one, didn’t have much recollection of his life before this war, first of all, and second of all: he’d grown up in a Roman camp that made warriors out of two year olds. So. He was pretty much made of the whole war business.

Nico, on the other hand, had lived through (and remembered) two wars in the past four years (technically three, if you counted that whole WWIII thing, which Jason definitely did, by the way), gone through literal hell and back, all the while doing expected demigod stuff like killing monsters and some pointedly _not expected_ demigod stuff like running errands for the lord of the dead and whatever else it was he used to do in his free time (Nico’s told him bits and pieces, told him about this huge chimera that chased him through the alleys of half of New York before he finally got an edge on it, about the time he was eleven years old and got lost one day in the middle of winter and was so tired he couldn’t shadow travel so he had to huddle against a dumpster and try not to freeze to death in the snow). So he wasn’t exactly at the top of his game in that department either.

_Anyway,_ the point is that they’re better friends now, the kind that look at the stars together and demolish people at capture the flag together and watch shitty old horror movies well into the night until they fall asleep spread out all over each other and wake up the next morning and give Jason a heart attack. Nico is definitely the kind of friend to give you a good heart attack now and then, seconded closely by Leo Goddamn Valdez.

And anyway, yeah, he’s usually way more composed than this but alright it’s really hard to be composed when you blink awake and look across the mound of pillows and see Nico lying, chin propped up in his arms in a way that can’t be comfortable and _your glasses hanging from his ears and sliding halfway down his nose every time he breaths or shifts in his sleep._

And Jason has no idea how they even got there or how he hasn’t broken them yet by rolling over and cracking them or something but. There they are.

And gods. Gods he hadn’t. He never. Well Nico had stolen them a few times, sure, but always just peered through the lenses instead of putting them on and if Jason had known how good he would look, how cute holy shit??? holy shit— _holy shit????_ —well. He would’ve found a way to get him to wear them a long time ago, probably.

And it’s just. Gods. He thinks he should probably stop staring and look away, that he shouldn’t intrude, that he is probably being really creepy right now, but.

It’s just. Nico’s hair looks so soft, sticking up in tufts in a dark birds nest on top of his head, and his eyelashes are super long and he looks?? So peaceful? So stress free, so calm, so young–and okay, yeah, Nico is young, he’s like fourteen, almost fifteen maybe, and Jason’s not exactly old either, but it’s so hard to remember sometimes—especially when he’s kicking Jason’s ass when they spar—that it hits him like a freight train sometimes, when he’s laughing with his head thrown back or throwing his arms out to gesture when he’s excited about something—and right now, his new hoodie bunched around his arms folded under his head, breath coming in slow puffs and _Jason’s glasses_ sliding down his nose and he’s still really hung up on this????

It’s just. His heart hasn’t beat this fast since he was falling out of the sky as the world was ending, since he’d jumped after Piper into the Grand Canyon and flown, looked into her pretty kaleidoscope eyes and _froze_ because _wow_. It’s the exact same kinda wow he’s feeling right now kind of? Which should probably say something about something but then—

Nico is waking up, stirring and then blinking blearily at him from across the pillows and Jason kind of feels that wow increase by at least 10. 11? More than 8.

He sees him squint, because Jason’s eyesight really is horrible and he probably cant see shit right now, looking adorably confused, gods. He pushes himself up on his forearms, lifting his head likes it’s the most difficult thing he’s ever done, messy hair flopping around with the movement, and clumsily pulls the glasses off, eyebrows furrowed like he has no idea how they got there.

He looks up then, eyes still half-lidded, and okay, Jason’s seen a lot of great things in his life, a lot of pretty things, a lot of beautiful things, but right now, right here—in his cabin on what he’s pretty sure is a Thursday morning? And it’s probably all soggy outside because they’re right on the cusp of fall and it’s been really rainy lately, watching this boy blow his hair out of his eyes and smile lazily, still on the edge of sleep—he thinks it’s one of the nicest things he’s ever seen.

He opens his mouth to tell him so, because it’s early in the morning, those first moments when the world isn’t quite awake yet and the things you say get lost and buried by the time the sun comes up, but just ends up saying “How’d those get there?”

Nico snorts, propping his head up on his hand like it’s too hard not to, and let’s his eyes flutter closed again. He shrugs the best he can with one shoulder and says “Thought you put ‘em there,” voice all rough and quiet from sleep.

Jason’s heart fucking _flips_ , straight up does like three somersaults off the goddamn high dive into the deep end of the camp lake, and he huffs something that might have been a laugh if the sun was up and they were somewhere not here, and he says “I thought _you_ put 'em there,”

Nico shakes his head in sleepy disbelief and mumbles “How the hell—?”

“I keep telling you,” Jason whispers, dipping his head like it’s a secret only the two of them can know, “these damn things are _magic.”_

Nico opens his eyes again just to roll them at him because they’ve been through this before.

“They _are,_ ” Jason insists, propping himself up on his elbows, “Remember that time they showed up in Leo’s toolbox?”

“Everything shows up in Leo’s toolbox,” Nico counters, which is actually a pretty good point, but Jason is convinced.

“Or that time in the Demeter cabin,”

Nico opens his mouth to say something else practical and beautiful, and then pauses, makes his signature Deep In Thought face, nose all scrunched up, and frowns.

“Okay, I don’t know how to explain that one,” he admits, and interrupts Jason’s triumph to say _“But_ that doesn’t mean they’re 'magic’ or whatever,” he makes actual air quotes with his free hand and it’s the cutest goddamn thing Jason’s ever seen.

He decides to concede just because of that, damn him, rolls his eyes and says “Whatever you say,” just to see the way Nico smiles at him, the very first glints of sunlight pouring in through the window and dotting the bed.

When he looks like this, all soft and smiling and content, Jason can barely remember the time when he wasn’t, when he was skin and bone and survival, all dark tired eyes and scowls and dishing out bits and pieces of his trust like something precious he didn’t wanna waste. And Jason tried really very hard _not_ to waste any of it, and he thinks he probably did at least something like a good job because he gets to see this, gets to see Nico open and relaxed and sleepily content and he thinks he would probably do it all over again just to live through a few more quiet moments like this.

He also thinks he should maybe be alarmed by how certain he is about that, but that alarm gets lost somewhere between the messy sheets and the curve of Nico’s smile and he _lets it._

Nico says something about Jason being full of it and Jason laughs and says he’s probably right and Nico lets his head fall into the pillow to hide his own laugh which Jason wish he wouldn’t do because his laugh is honestly one of the best sounds he’s ever heard? But watching his shoulders shake in silent laughter and then seeing him roll onto his side to smile up at him, dark hair spilling over the pillow, isn’t really all that bad either, if he’s being honest, which he is. 

He should really say something about it, he thinks vaguely. He should tell him how nice he looks when he smiles, how his laugh makes him feel all warm and how his eyes light up when he talks about his sisters and how Nico, tracing the creases of the sheets while he talks about his dream, faint smile on his face, is the most beautiful damn thing he’s seen in a long time.

He really should say something about it but he doesn’t wanna ruin the moment, doesn’t wanna have to explain himself, doesn’t wanna watch Nico close up again—and plus it’d probably be embarrassing to say out loud now that he’s thinking about it, wow.

Maybe he’ll say it someday, maybe he’ll tell Nico exactly how much he means to him, but for now he’ll settling for this, for small smiles and little moments no one but them are a part of. 

For now, this. This is enough.

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> every comment makes a flower grow, even in the winter


End file.
